It’s inspired books, films, claimed teeth and bruised butts, it’s about time the dangerous sport roller derby got included in the Olympics and 2020 might just be the year. Alongside baseball, softball, wakeboarding, squash, sport climbing, rollersports, karate, and the martial art wushu it’s under consideration for inclusion as an Olympic sport.

The fast paced contact sport on wheels has been on the rise since it was revived in the early 2000s. The activity differs from other current Olympic sports with its punk ethic and DIY attitude. Just the kind of thing that would have interested the teenage me in sports and the kind of thing cross country running does not provide.

Roller Derby is usually thought of as a third wave feminism sport, unlike most female dominated sports there’s no hiding the toughness required here. To play you need 2 teams of 5 who skate counter clockwise on a circuit track. Each team has a ‘jammer’ who scores and the other 4 members are called ‘blockers’. 1 blocker is selected to be a ‘pivot’ which means they can become a jammer during play. The jammers and pivots wear stars and stripes on their helmets respectively.

At the beginning of a bout blockers line up at the starting line with the jammers 30 feet behind. Once all the blockers have crossed the pivot line the jammers start. The blockers form a pack, when the first jammer passes all opposing blockers she becomes the lead jammer for the remainder of the jam. After that every time the lead jammer laps an opposing member she scores a point.

To score points there are various little tricks and strategies with names such as The Whip, in which jammers can be swung forward by the hand by a blocker or pivot on her team to gain momentum and Getting the Goat where the slowest blocker is surrounded by the opposing team meaning the blocker’s team is put out of play.

There are all kinds of traditions and code in Roller Derby, derby names and ‘bout-fits’ are just the beginning. Apparently it’s not all Ellen Page and hot tub after parties as PROMISED in the 2009 film Whip It. But I am pretty sure it’s in the minority of sports in which fishnet tights are, on occasion, a requirement.

However, one could argue that Roller Derby is able to be as awesome and free and artistically lush as it is because it is a more underground, less mainstream support. It's punk by nature - by bringing it to the olympics, surely it would corrupt it with advertising, idiotic fans, and lead to the sport being watered down in the long run?

Reply

Squeamish Kate

13/02/2012 04:08

This is true, but it would be interesting to see how it would be sanitised and it is even possible.